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I would do this at the restaurant I worked at. The cooks got mad at me and told management I was wasting paper and ink. I got written up. And they still made the dish with garlic. Allergic reaction, I look like a colossal fuck up, don't get tipped, and the dick cook gets to keep his fucking job.

I wish I could understand why onions are the default on fucking everything. I've heard the excuse that they give flavor when cooking a thousand times (and it's not like your mcburger patty was cooked with them) but it has never held true in my experience. More importantly I have never known a single food on Earth to be so greatly despised by so many people, but the majority like it so fuck everyone else right?

For me it's not even an issue of allergies or inability to eat them, I just find the taste so vile and impossible to wash away that the moment I bite into one the entire meal is completely ruined.

People with fewer reviews fall to the bottom of lists while those with more lists float to the top. For the majority of us that look at only the first 5ish reviews of a place, it doesn't matter. Most of posts I read are limited to the 'Yelp Elite' posters, since those are people who review a lot and are trusted (source: my Mother reviews pretty much every place she goes and is now Elite).

I don't like that the employees at that restaurant didn't comply with your reasonable requests, and were rude to you when you confronted them. I'm very sorry they treated you that way. In time, the wounds will heal and I sincerely hope that you will find a restaurant that respects your intolerance of raw onions. You deserve nothing but the best in life.

HAhahahahahahaha! Four languages then. Seriously, it's the first phrase I learn to say when I decide to visit a country. That and "I'd like to speak to my attorney," but that's unrelated to this discussion.

Cooks get to hide behind the waitstaff because they aren't tipped. The work in the back of the house is every bit as difficult as the duties in front, but the compensation is not equal. The line cook has to deal with the fact that the busser will be taking home more money at the end of the night. The managers and waitstaff are paid to deal with the needs of the guests, and yes, that does include apologizing and finding a way to satisfy a customer who has been upset by an error in the kitchen. Problems with order accuracy, laziness, or stupidity need to be dealt with internally. Allowing an irate customer to berate a line cook while tickets are piling up and a shit storm is brewing in the kitchen is a dangerous precedent to set. Let the sous chef handle the discipline.
Source:
17 years in the industry

Wow. As a cook reading the comments I'm pretty shocked at how we're classified as totally fucking lazy. Your comment got to me though for how much you insist on calling out the cook to come out of 'hiding'. Here's a few examples on how it's very likely it's not the cook being a lazy cunt.

In my situation your steak may be one of the 5 steaks I have on my grill on top of the other 10+ items going on simultaneously and it may have totally been my fuck up and for that I'd rush you a new steak when I found out about my mistake (it happens) but it wouldn't goto your table.

Maybe I did brush it with garlic butter and I have a server/manager telling me to wipe it off or wash it off and I'm told "It'll be fine".

Maybe your steak went up in the window perfectly (no garlic) and the person in charge of sending the food out grabbed the regular Med steak missing the Med Steak no garlic which I've marked with a toothpick to indicate there's a mod on it.

Maybe the person sending the food out, the server running the food should have noticed that fact that THEIR guests food is done wrong and shouldn't send a potentially dangerous item to the table.

Hell, maybe our steaks are marinated in garlic and I've already spoken to the server/manager informing them that I can't get them a non garlic steak and to check to make sure the guest is ok with it.

My point is that if you insisted on having me come out to the dinning room so you could pretend you had a fucking clue how shit went down and how it was entirely my fault that the three people between me and you didn't notice your steak was wrong, I'd simply tell you that you're wrong and give you a time frame on your remake.

Lazy, not a word that can be associated to most cooks who last past their three months.

Edit: God forbid nothing happened with the POS system and the 'no garlic' mod ended up being modded under the fries or other side item which normally has garlic so it looks legit. I.E "Med steak w/side Veg (No garlic)" So a steak could potentially go out with garlic and no garlic on the veg and as far as the cooks are concerned that was what was requested. Now, in case of allergy or a pivot/boardcaller with experience normally a mod like that would be checked to confirm.

All i'm saying, your tactic for treating me like a moron or a lazy ass because I work on the side of the restaurant that makes you your food and all the ancillary processes before the 'rush' is asinine.

Yea lazy my ass. Another thing is when you cook the same menu for a while it becomes like muscle memory. Changes to dishes are really easy to forget becuase you're not really thinking about the dish you're plating now, you're just going through the motions and thinking about how to get the next five tables up.

This is a joke of a post and it is clear you have never worked in the industry, in any capacity, if you think this is an acceptable way to approach the situation.

Often times, waiters have a million things going on and they forget to add a mod to a ticket. A mod tells the cook what to add or what not to add to a dish. Cooks take allergies seriously and if waitstaff tells us that a customer has an allergy, we triple-check that shit to make sure they are not in danger.

So for those who assume that cooks are half-witted grease monkeys hell-bent on fucking you over like the cooks in that movie Waiting,
trust that most of us really do care about the quality of your food and your safety.

Nailed it... Also most resturants will have the chef or at least a sous chef working line running back of the house, not only will they call the mod they'll double check before it goes out incase the grill monkey eff's up... Mistakes happen but in my experience the cooks want to keep the resturant open as much as the FOH and fuck ups are bad business

When someone says they have an allergy or a food intolerance, there's usually a pretty big procedure involved. For example, at the last place I worked, if you ordered a steak but said you had a gluten intolerance, the cooks would have to drop everything, change gloves, clean the grill especially for you, and cook just your food all by itself to prevent cross-contamination with anyone else's.

Similar procedures applied for other allergies and intolerances.

Not unreasonable if a person really does have a problem, but it puts a lot of strain on the kitchen and can delay everyone's food. If too many people start feigning allergies to make sure their proclivities are taken seriously, the entire kitchen can collapse under the weight of special requests.

I won't say that cooks never screw up, but I wouldn't say that it's less likely for a server to screw up. Servers can very easily forget to put a ticket item in or screw up aspects of the ticket. I also don't think it's the cook being lazy as much as it's just an accident.

If you indicate the fact that you're allergic though, most servers are pretty on point about including that in their tickets. I used to work BOH and I think we only had one allergy issue where it was wait staff error and not cook/expo error.

While this may be true in your experience, it's not true in mine, which is ultimately the problem with anecdotal evidence. I have worked over 15 years in restaurants in different positions, including cook, wait staff, and management. The front and back of the house make mistakes, but I don't think that one makes more mistakes than the other. That was all I was saying. I also don't mean to infer that my anecdotal evidence is more valid than yours. I am very aware that I could be statistically wrong.

You. I like you. I worked in restaurants all through high school and college, and I am now a researcher. Even with that training, I still fall into the occasional trap of anecdotal evidence. You make a very valid point, and I respect that. Thank you. It's been my personal experience that everyone I've worked with has been pretty on point about allergies, but I am just one person, one data point.

I'd have to disagree. When I waited we were very on point about these things. Cooks don't have to answer to the customer and don't lose money if they're not happy. My experience is that cooks "kind of" care for the most part. Servers really care if they're even half decent at their job. I often had to check ingredients myself for allergies because the cooks would say "I'm pretty sure there's no nuts in there." Well sorry chief, but I'm going to take five minutes and read a label rather that let a teenage girl end up in the hospital. Not all cooks are bad mind you, and not all waiters are great, but if I made a wager I'd wager cooks screw these things up two or three times as often as servers.

I never blame the waitstaff when my food comes out with onions after asking for them not to be there.

Why?

If they are the ones bringing you your food (which isn't always the case anymore) and they know you ordered it w/o onions then it is absolutely their job to double check and make sure there are no onions. It may not have been their fault but it is their problem.

Now I certainly wouldn't get mad at a waiter for a chef's mixup though.

The person bringing you the food isn't always the person who took your order. Waiters generally have a set of tables for which they are responsible, but getting the food out is everyone's job no matter which table it is.

I've worked both ends, back of the house and front of the house, and I have seen this many times. It sucks when the cooks mess up an order that was specifically highlighted not to add a condiment then the server has to eat the tip, the restaurant has to eat the cost of food and labor, and the restaurant loses credibility. Something so simple has a chain effect. However, good management will come out and address the issue with the customer and diminish loss of returns.

When I worked with food I would just apologize and tell people that I can't take their order.... Especially for common things like garlic and onions. Getting indigestion is one thing, but someone with a serious allergy could have a reaction from utensils that simply have touched garlic or onions. It is next to impossible to ensure that separate utensils are used for these types of orders, especially in busy kitchens. In these cases even if there was none in the order, the customer could potentially still have a deadly reaction. Liability falls on the restaurant owner.

When you say things like that you quickly find out how many people have "allergies" to food and how many actually have allergies.

Strawberries make my throat close, so as someone with a "deadly" allergy...I tend to be much more vigilant in my food choices and will inspect every plate put in front of me. I would say that a mishap is just as much the fault of the dumbass who ate it.

My mother has a brutal capsaicin allergy. Potentially deadly; usually a hospital trip. She, my father, and I carefully inspect everything put in front of her, and my dad and I usually taste test, as well. A couple times things have still gotten through, though thankfully in small enough amounts that her epi-pen was sufficient.

Point being: not all allergy ingredients are obvious, or even easily detectable. A "pinch" of cayenne powder mixed into a sauce? Good luck.

That's kind of shitty. Not everyone's reaction will be deadly. My friend can't eat garlic because it does terrible things to her stomach. I can't eat bananas because I will fucking vomit all over your restaurant. Neither of us will die if you happen to use a spoon that touched the things we can't eat.

I can't eat onions because they give me terrible indigestion, other foods make me nauseous. These are not what your server thinks when you say allergies. They almost immediately go to anaphylaxis... And many people who say "allergies" know this and use it to make sure they get the food prepared properly. You want food done properly find a better restaurant, don't scare the server into hounding the kitchen over the fear that you might die. They, and the kitchen staff, are too busy for that.

That makes it your choice, then. I understand the restaurant's policy for that - it is just too much responsibility for them to deal with if you have a fatal allergy. If you let them know that your allergy isn't fatal but still does give you some really bad side effects, they will usually be more willing to let you eat there and just let the kitchen know that you have an allergy to an ingredient. Especially if you just ask them if they could just make sure to leave out that ingredient, and if you are a little more sensitive just wipe the knife off before preparing your food to get off any major chunks of whatever you're allergic too, but it doesn't have to be totally washed/sanitized. It depends on the restaurant though - some have a stricter policy because they don't want to be responsible for a mistake (because mistakes do happen, even from the most attentive of staff) that could hospitalize someone.

Worked at McDonald's when I was 15, screen says "EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA pepper" for the quarter pounder.

We laugh in the back "oh! We'll show them EXTRA"

Create giant mountain.

2 hours later, manager throws it at our face with a bite taken off of it. Cashier supposed to write NO PEPPER, client was allergic and is now in hospital. Blames me for shooting the weapon, not the cashier that designed it.

Probably meant "NO NO NO NO NO" but was not paying attention to the screen before they sent the order back and hit extra every time by accident. Also, who doesn't look at their food before eating it if they know it comes with something they're allergic to?

Who in the fucking hell would actually hit the word "extra" THAT many times without ever fucking realizing that they're hitting extra instead of "no". They're not even remotely similar words.

That customer should NOT, NOT eat hamburgers at McDonalds EVER. Fucking. EVER. No matter what you do, you can never make sure the burger is completely clear. They season the meat when it's still on the grill. They would have to shut the grill down, clean the grill, scrape the grill, clean it again, turn the grill back on, wait for it to heat, and cook ONE patty with all new utensils and grill tools, and I bet you 100 bucks that the guy on grill STILL seasons it with his shaker out of habit from making thousands of patties. You just can't have no seasoning at McDonalds. It's not feasible. It's like ordering "no fish, deadly fish allergy" at fucking Red Lobster. It's just not a good idea.

As a cook I have no problem with this. Your average person doesn't want onions on his burger? Once is fine. Someone doesn't want onions on their burger due to a food allergy? You better make sure I know. Putting someone in the hospital isn't good for business, tips, or my conscience.

If you have an allergy, it should be your responsibility to make sure the server knows, if it is a big deal. I've never even heard of a Parmesan allergy, but I know plenty of people that prefer not to have it on their pasta.

If the server isn't telling the cook after being told, well, that's another problem altogether.

As someone who lost an aunt to a careless cook/food allergy and who has a mother with severe food allergies, thank you. My mom is clear about her allergies wherever she goes especially after losing her sister and she has still had some close calls. Outback was the worst. Server confirmed the chicken salad could be prepared sans nuts and that it could be made in a special area of the kitchen that avoids allergens. My mom got two bites in and crunched into an almond. She took her epi, my stepdad called 911 for an ambulance. The manager came out and asked if they were going to pay before they left.

Edit: That was in regards to my aunt. I was an adult when Outback almost killed my mother but she's so polite and Canadian she didn't want to sue. Believe me when I say that I wasn't pleased with her for not suing.

As someone who is "allergic" (re: I have fructose malabsorption, extreme abdominal pain and diarrhea/vomiting if I eat garlic, but no anaphylactic shock) I would tip extra—like 50%—if I saw that ticket. I greatly appreciate anytime a waiter takes the time to make sure the food is prepared correctly.

I am close to someone with garlic intolerance but I have never heard the phrase 'fructose malabsorption' before. I didn't know there could be so much more to it. Some basic googling has led me to a giant list of other foods that could be causing problems, which would explain why eliminating garlic only solved most (but not all) of the symptoms.

I believe that's called an intolerance rather than an allergy. For example, I have a cacao intolerance- if I ingest it, I have an intense GI response (like you described), get dizzy, and I'm exhausted for hours after the episode, but I don't have difficulty breathing or develop hives. My doctor told me that makes it an intolerance, rather than an allergy.

That makes sense and certainly it's advisable to be as precise as possible when discussing these issues with a doctor, but in general use wouldn't you agree it's safer/simpler to just say "allergy"? I just picture a waiter looking at me blankly if I said I had a "garlic intolerance".

I'm allergic to kiwi. Not even a remotely common ingredient, so I always have to send things back that include surprise kiwi. And now I've learned to order something COMPLETELY different afterwards, because if the stuff isn't washed and prepared on totally clean surfaces, I still react to it.

I count myself lucky in the food allergy department though. Kiwi is pretty rarely found in casual, everyday dining.

This is me and Brazil nuts... like, if I end up at a Hard Rock Cafe, I simply can't have dessert because they use them in everything.

A day before my wedding, my wife and I went to a chocolatier in the town we were getting married. They had candies of various nut pastes (like marzipan, but made from different nuts.) They had a brazil nut paste. I asked if they make all the pastes in the same machine. They did.

Later, my wife offers me a bite of marzipan (sweetened almond paste), absently, and I accepted, absently-- having forgotten about the chat with the chocolatier. For the rest of the day my throat itched and my uvula swelled a bit and was sloughing mucus. So, it is quite literally grains or residue that can effect me.

I was ordering food with a friend once, and he ordered a plain burger. He must of said "plain" a dozen times on top of a few "no lettuce and tomato or anything like that." When we got our ticket back it said "1 Burger - PLAAAAAIIIN"

Don't make a whole fucking list of ten different burgers that all come with different things on them (like one burger has lettuce, tomatoes, pickles; and another has tomatoes, pickles, onions) so I have to guess what I want taken off. Instead, make a menu of limited choices (plain, cheese, bacon, bacon+cheese) and you add the toppings yourself.

In other words, all burger places should make toppings opt-in instead of opt-out

Canada has a burger chain called Harvey's that does this. You order a burger cheese burger, or bacon cheese burger. To the left of the cash on your side is a tri-partitioned glass window, on the other side of which three stations are set up for employees. When your burger is done it comes to the window and you tell them what you want as they assemble it.
I love five guys but its expensive enough to be a real special occasion kind of burger.

I knew how bitchy I came across when I'd have to do this but they weren't the ones who have to deal with the fall out when they couldn't follow the ticket. I would dread special instructions when I'd go to the counter to pick them up.

I hate the fact that I can't eat cheese. I can only order pizzas from certain stores, because the rest seem to see "No cheese" and think "Oh shit, he must have typed wrong, he probably meant extra cheese!" and then smother the whole fucking thing in cheese.

Although once I did get a pizza that only had cheese on half of it, I count that a success.

This reminded me of something. At a restaurant I worked at a guy ordered one of our salads without the pine nuts. Then he orders our Kung Pao beef which had cashews in it. Turns out he was allergic to nuts and had an allergic reaction. At no point did he say he had a nut allergy. The difference between saying "No nuts on my salad" to "I'm allergic to nuts" is huge. The server would have done a similar thing you did by clearly stating a nut allergy. The manager got angry at the server but it wasn't his fault.

Two words are the bane of my existence in a kitchen: "gluten. allergy." 99.9% of the time when I see the slip and I look into the dining room (open kitchen) it's typically a yuppie 25-30 year old woman who has no problem drinking a beer and nibbling at the rolls on the table. Fuck. You. Pretentious. Bitch. DO NOT CLAIM AN ALLERGY JUST TO GET YOUR WAY! 9/10 times if you tell us you don't like something, we can and will remove it or cut most of it out if it was prepped beforehand.

I am Celiac, I have a disease that mean it will damage my intestines and not allow me to absorb nutrients. I can get VERY sick if I eat it, and even if I don't get sick It can still effect me. Every time I eat it it does more lasting damage. It is pretentious people like these, hoping on a fad diet who make it difficult for me to eat out at a restaurant. These people make waiters/waitresses and kitchen staff think that all people who aren't eating gluten are just pretentious hipsters and yuppies and don't have a real allergy. I'm terrified to go out to a restaurant and eat. I hope people realize that for some of us not eating gluten is NOT a choice.

We have an almost entirely new kitchen staff at the restaurant I work at. I have to go to the kitchen after I put my order in and verbalize it, then stand at the window while they plate it, and I inevitably have to send something back to be fixed. The modifiers are in a larger font than the orders themselves. How, after reading

Then hearing the exact same thing you've just read, do you put a fried chicken sandwich, 3 fish tacos covered in cilantro instead of 2 without, and a small order of chicken fingers in the window? It makes me look fucking incompetent and I can't fucking stand it.

I get that people don't like certain foods. I get it. and I get that people have food allergies. I do. I have some myself.

But if years in commercial kitchens have taught me anything. it's that cross contamination happens. The food you eat at a restaurant comes from a series of cooks, not just one. The raw product comes in at the back. You've got your big bags of onions, your potatoes, your lettuce... it all comes in on a truck once or twice a week, along with your paper goods, your fryer oil, all your consumables. It gets stored in a walk in cooler or dry storage room. Everything the kitchen uses will come out of those rooms. If you have a nut allergy, and you go to a place that serves peanuts in the shell, I guarantee you that there is an open box of nuts sitting right next to boxes of other product. If you have a latex allergy, there may be a dozen different people handling products with gloves on. Many companies use nitrile now, but latex is cheaper.

On to the second tier of allergy hell: prep work. Most prep cooks are overworked and underpaid. It's usually an entry level position. A few basic knife skills are required, but that's about it. Your prep cook has a great big list to knock out. They'll cut fifty pounds of onion, cut a case of lettuce for salads, knock out a giant cambro container of fruit salad, etc. This is all done on one cutting board. Back of the house space is at a premium. I have seen people take great care with this, and I have seen it done as fast as humanly possible just to keep up with the never ending list of tasks. It's not about art, it's about volume. Several days worth of food are prepared at a time. While raw proteins are usually handled with care and concern for cross contamination, these items are a small part of the daily grind, and usually handled by a sous chef.

On to the line. Each station has a mise en place. This is a series of small containers, usually on a chilled line, and they are arranged for ease of use. The sliced veggies, the seasonings, butter, cream, prepared sauces, are all together in various combinations for each cook. Each worker also has a set of instruments: tongs, spatulas, thermometers, etc. It is very rare that these items get sanitized between uses. A good cook will always have a spare set of tongs, so they won't have to run to the dish room if they drop a pair. But by and large, they get used to cook any number of dishes.

A word about sauces and soups. If you go to a chain restaurant, all the sauces and soups come pre made in plastic bags to ensure consistency. If you ask a server in most places if a soup contains an ingredient, say, garlic, they will ask the kitchen about it. The chef making the dish will probably have no input into the ingredients. They just warm it up. Some companies are good about recognizing the need to customize food for the consumer. Many are not. They value consistency much more than individual satisfaction.

Now, if there is an ingredient you find yucky, make sure your server knows this. Do your best to see if any of said ingredient made it onto your plate before you dig in.

With an allergy, you must let your server know right away. It may seem like you're making a big deal out of it. This is because it IS a big deal. No one wants to eat in a restaurant where someone is getting an emergency tracheotomy in the dining room.

If you have minor but annoying allergy, I recommend carrying a couple of diphenhydramine (Benadryl) tablets with you. If your lips swell or itch, if the corners of your eyes get dry, If you get an itchy rash, you've been exposed. Drink a glass of water, pop the tabs, and for God's sake, don't eat any more.

If your allergies are more severe, if your chest hurts or your throat closes up, or if your eyes swell, you need to carry an Epi-Pen. Epinephrine will help overpower the histamines in your system. Remember that a restaurant is there to serve you, not save you. If you have severe allergies, and someone else is handling your food, then be responsible. Talk to a doctor about treatment options before you need to know. It beats sitting in the ER on a Saturday night with all your dining companions.

If you have ANY life threatening allergies, and you still must have your food prepared by a stranger, try calling the place ahead of time and making arrangements. Don't show up at 7 on Saturday night and inform your server that everything used to prepare your food must be cleared of any trace of X, Y, or Z. This tactic is likely to backfire. There are a lot of people who want food, and your ticket is one of many. If your order is one of a dozen similar items hanging, well, shit happens.

I'll put you an example: a young man was traveling with his family. He had a number of severe allergies. They were in town for a week, and knew that they would need seven or eight meals prepared for him. At the beginning of the week, they talked to the manager and made special arrangements. They told him what the boy was allergic to, and made arrangements to have special food prepped, special equipment used, etc. When they arrived for their first dinner, they came in a little early, asked to speak with the chef, and presented him with a laminated list of the forbidden foods. The chef gave this to the line cooks to hang on the ticket rack. When his check came back, it was marked for special attention. The food was treated with the utmost care and consideration. Even with these precautions, up to and including that the plates were wiped free of smudges with a fresh napkin, the boy had a few bites, and then the family WAITED to make sure there were no problem, Epi-Pen at the ready. After a few minutes, they dug in.

We repeated these steps for the rest of the week. His mom gave us cookies and a thank you note when they left.

I am not suggesting that you have to do this every time you eat. But do you really want to place your health in the hands of an underpaid, highly stressed employee?

I do get your point. My sophomore year roomie was allergic to cheese (by the way, you never realize how much cheese you eat until you're not allowed to possess any) and food was always a chore. Of course, her situation was made worse because I think she was actually allergic to one of the cultures they used so even being around a lot of cheese could be bad for her.

Doesn't matter if her order came without cheese, she'd at least have a mild reaction. She basically decided that it was inevitable but I always felt bad for her.

It's funny until you have to do this every time you go out to eat. My wife is allergic to pork, shellfish, dairy, wheat, and soy, so we rarely go out to eat and when we do we have to do this. It's amazing how many cooks just go ahead and ignore our requests when it comes to food allergies. At least when the wife has a reaction we usually get her meal for free...

I'm a server at a seafood restaurant, and we take allergies very, VERY seriously. If someone mentions the word allergy, we have a floor manager over to talk with them about the specifics of the allergy. That manager then goes to the kitchen manager to make sure that the food is prepared in such a way so that the guest does not come into contact with anything that could cause an allergic reaction. I'm surprised that this isn't a common practice at all restaurants!!

Last week I gave a group of Asians dishes with meat in despite it saying "vegetarian" and "no meat" on the ticket. When the Dad realised, he was literally screaming - apparently he had gone nearly 40 years without eating meat and now we had just fucked that up for him. That was an awful shift :(

Oh my God, those are the best. Generally I'm pretty unimpressed with the Buffalo Wild Wings near where I live (the food is cold when we go there much of the time and the service sucks), but the parmesan garlic wings are always worth it anyway.

That's a decent mild sauce, I used to love the mango habanero, but I think they've been mixing it really poorly because the flavor has shifted to be almost no mango, and all habanero - which makes it hotter than the insane sauce.

Am I the only person around here that thinks it's incredibly stupid and dangerous to order something that normally comes with something you are incredibly allergic to. Never leave your life in someone's hands on the off chance they may not be stupid or lazy just so you can eat out.

My girlfriend is highly allergic to garlic, starts vomiting, night ruined. every time we go out its pretty much stressed like this, every time the food comes back it has garlic on it. there are a few instances where they actually care but there is a certain moment after the waiter takes her order that you can tell her food is coming back with garlic.

People with severe allergies shouldn't order anything that normally contains that ingredient. There are just way too many opportunities for it to go wrong. Server forgets, cook doesn't see the note, expediter grabs the wrong plate...not worth getting sick over.

The problem is that most places serve stuff that has garlic whether its pre marinated meats and the like. She asks if there is garlic in a dish before hand and they often say yes but we can make it without garlic for you and then they screw it up. If everything has garlic she usually will ask can the chef accommodate me with something off menu. When we go out to the fancier places nothing is pre made so its easier to say no garlic because the chef can just not put it in

I understand your pain. When allergic guests would ask which dishes contained peanuts at the last place I served, the answer was pretty much "everything on the menu". In your shoes I'd stick to small local restaurants and become regulars. When they know you they're a lot more likely to take better care of you.

Its the second or two of hesitation while you watch the waiter write your order and they only put the three letter code for the dish and don't actually write "no garlic." Then they look at you with a "is that it" glance. Then you wonder if you should ask if they actually wrote "no garlic" thereby accusing them of outright lying to you.

Not ALL servers are poor communicators, but a good chunk of them are. People with tiny voices can't go into a kitchen and quietly say "No onions on that, guys" and expect to be heard.

Not only is the kitchen loud, but the entire kitchen staff is loud. At least in 100% of the restaurants I've worked in, from McD's, to Pizza Hut, to Ruby Tuesday, to Cracker Barrell, and even when I worked in fine dining at a hotel restaurant... the kitchen and its staff are the loudest people in the building and they have a tendency to not hear the soft spoken. A kitchen note, or grill note, often doesn't do the trick.

Most of the POS (point of sale) systems that restaurants use have "DO NOT MAKE" and "SEE SERVER" buttons on them. Also, one of my favorite tricks, make the drinks for everyone at the table, then go back into the kitchen and tell them what's about to happen... face to face. Then make the ticket, add "SEE SERVER," go back again and say "That's the one I was talking about," along with a friendly reminder that these people hate raw onions, or are allergic to garlic, or have a gluten intolerance, or are pretentious and like to pretend they have a gluten intolerance, or like to be a pain in the ass and order special things off the menu because they think they learned something from a shitty daytime talk show.

TL;DR: Communicate effectively with kitchen staff and orders are right every time... also, they will invite you out to parties and BOH always parties harder than FOH.

First of all, there's a huge rift between FOH and BOH staff. I'm a line cook but I like to think I take other perspectives in pretty well. Most cooks assume FOH fuck things up but tell the customer it is the cooks. Most FOH think that cooks are too lazy or assholes to do certain mods.

If a customer has a severe allergy to something they shouldn't be eating out. Odds are, unless the restaurant clearly states otherwise, a lot of those places aren't equipped to prepare food with the promise of no cross-contamination. And even if it is possible, if that request is made in the middle of a dinner rush that could really mess up the flow and timing of the other dishes, depending on the size of the menu/restaurant/etc.